In general, foldable portable telephones are being utilized by a large number of users. Since these portable telephones are foldable during portable conditions and thus can be made compact, and furthermore, various sorts of keys are located on the inner sides and are not operated in careless manners under such a condition that these portable telephones are folded, these portable telephones are very convenient as to portabilities thereof.
On the other hand, in any of these sorts of foldable portable telephones, while telephone transmitters and telephone receivers are mounted on portions positioned far from hinge portions of housings, speakers for producing telephone call-receiving sounds are mounted on the side of rear surfaces of the housings, which have display devices. As a consequence, even when the housings are closed and these portable telephones are transported, if telephone calls are received, then telephone call-receiving sounds are projected from the rear surfaces of the housings to be heard in satisfactable sound levels. Thus, while the housings are opened and then both the telephone transmitters and the telephone receivers are moved close to mouths and ears of the users, these portable telephones can be readily used by the user, resulting in very convenience.
Very recently, not only these using methods of the portable telephones are required, but also such a need is made. That is, time signals, weather forecast, and voice sent from other telephone communication counter parties may be outputted from the speakers, and furthermore, voice sent from a telephone communication counter party may be directly outputted from these speakers, namely the speakers may be used as speakers for hand-free telephone operation. However, the above-explained constructions of these foldable portable telephones could not sufficiently meet this requirement. In other words, since the speakers are mounted on the rear surfaces of the housings, the voice reproduced from the speakers is projected along the backward directions far from the users under such a condition that the housings are opened, so that the voice of these speakers cannot be propagated to the users in satisfactory sound levels. Otherwise, even when the voice of the speakers is propagated to the users, since this voice is propagated while detouring outer peripheral portions of the housings, there is a serious problem that sound qualities are considerably deteriorated and the user can hardly hear the detoured voice.